Old Fat Lady and Tattoos?

Last year, I happened onto a show called Ink Master. It's on Spike, whose target audience is male. I loved it. I have no idea why - I don't have any tattoos (yet!) and I always thought I disapproved of them. They're permanent, and if you get tired of them, you can't scrub them off. If, ten years later, you no longer want your significant other's name tattooed on your arm, due to the fact that s/he is no longer your significant other, you're screwed. The tattoo that made you laugh in your twenties might just embarrass you in your forties.

However, I'm now in my sixties, and I expect my tastes aren't going to change too drastically in the next few decades. I secretly want to apply to be a canvas for the next season of Ink Master. Don't tell anybody! Some of the contestants don't want to tattoo old people because aging skin handles differently, but they've had at least one woman in her 70s on.

There are other shows about tattoos, but they all seem to be slanted towards repairing or covering up bad tattoos. Tattoo Nightmares is a show about three L.A. artists who specialize in covering up bad tattoos. Then there's Bad Ink, set in Las Vegas. These two characters (a tattoo artist and his sidekick) go around looking for bad tattoos, and they've found a lot of them (example: a large-size woman who had "EXIT ONLY" tattooed right over her ass crack). Occasionally, somebody even wants to have their bad tattoo covered up, although more people than you'd think just want to keep their tattoos because either they have appalling taste or they're used to them.

These bad-tattoo stories all seem to start the same way: "I was out with my friends and we were drinking..." That's all it takes - too much alcohol and the encouragement of a few impaired friends - to lead to waking up in the morning with a horrible tattoo. Frequently, they were under age 18, and were tattooed by somebody who didn't know what they were doing.

In one of the Bad Ink episodes, one of the guys (I think it was Ruckus, the one who isn't a tattoo artist) was trying to entice old people in a retirement community to come and get a tattoo. One woman took them up on it. She was older than I am.

There's a tattoo convention in Boston this weekend. I could go - I'm on my own for the long weekend. I could even come back with a tattoo. I looked at the page of artists, and there are a lot of gorgeous tattoos being shown. Bright colors, unique designs, different styles, from realistic to abstract, cartoon-like, or like the cover of a fantasy novel. I think I'd like something in color. But where? My ankle? My shoulder? I thought about having a tattoo that would incorporate my spider veins on my legs... I think I'd want something I could hide if I wanted to. I don't know. My kids would probably think I've gone crazy.